Rescue efforts have largely ceased in Syria six days after two devastating earthquakes and many smaller earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria. Few people buried under the rubble can last more than six days.
There have been over 35,000 confirmed deaths in the two countries from the earthquakes. Over 30,000 have died in Turkey, and over 5,000 have died in Syria. Over 100,000 people have been seriously injured. Tens of thousands of buildings have collapsed. Economic damage from the earthquake exceeds $10 billion, of which only about $1 billion is insured.
The destruction of drinking water systems and other infrastructure is likely to worsen a cholera outbreak in Syria than began last year.
The United Nations estimates that 5 million people in war-torn Syria have been left homeless due to the earthquakes, although that is probably an overstatement. Even “before the earthquake,” “there was a perfect storm brewing …. of increasing food insecurity, collapsing healthcare systems, the lack of access to safe water and poor sanitation”, said UNICEF official Eva Hines.
The devastation in Syria could lead to renewed refugee flows into neighboring Turkey. The war in Syria turned Turkey into the world’s largest refugee hosting country, sheltering over 3 million Syrian refugees.
Turkish police launched investigations of 130 people accused of shoddy and illegal construction methods that led to buildings collapsing. While the quakes were powerful, experts say faulty construction multiplied the devastation. Turkey’s construction codes meet current earthquake-engineering standards, at least on paper, but they are seldom enforced, explaining why thousands of buildings toppled over or pancaked down, killing residents. Two men were arrested in Gaziantep province on suspicion of having cut down columns to make extra room in a building that collapsed in the quakes.
Rescuers saved a few more survivors in Turkey, including a pregnant woman and two young children, six days after two earthquakes collapsed thousands of buildings.
The death toll from the 7.8 magnitude and 7.5 magnitude quakes that hit southeastern Turkey and northern Syria nine hours apart on February 6 continued to rise as rescuers discovered more bodies in the rubble.
Rescuers, including crews from European countries, continued to probe the rubble in hope of finding additional survivors who could yet beat the increasingly long odds. Thermal cameras were used to probe the piles of concrete and metal, while rescuers asked for silence so that they could hear the voices of the trapped.
A pregnant woman was rescued Sunday in the hard-hit Turkish province of Hatay, 157 hours after the first quake.
After the earthquake in Hatay, Turkey, a 30-yard-deep rift was formed along the fault line. Olive groves were split in two.
